You won’t want to go back once you stop seeing ads.
Through the introduction of its Music and Premium services, YouTube has reached a new benchmark. The premium services have a combined total of more than one hundred million members as of the month of January, which includes users who were participating in a free trial. In a little more than a year, this represents a rise of twenty million members, and the number has increased by a factor of two since September 2021. YouTube has been able to successfully boost its numbers despite the fact that it increased the price of its Premium service by $2 per month during the summer of last year.
There is a lack of clarity regarding the number of users who are actually utilizing YouTube Music (the Premium plan permits access to that service). The music streaming service has a substantially smaller number of paying customers than Spotify, which had 220 million Premium members as of September 30. This is true regardless of how you approach the comparison. In the earnings report that will be given the following week, Spotify will provide its most recent membership numbers. Apple no longer provides a breakdown of the number of people who subscribe to Apple Music. During the year 2019, the company provided the most recent and definitive number for the service, which was sixty million subscribers.
Regardless, the subscription service offered by YouTube, Apple Music, and Spotify Premium are not even close to being comparable to one another. Premium YouTube is its own thing, and it comes with its own set of advantages. After having Premium, it may be difficult to return to the free version of the service, which is more inconvenient and filled with advertisements. Both the capability to download videos for offline viewing without the need to resort to workarounds and the functionality that allows for playback in the background are really helpful components. YouTube Music is merely an additional benefit that many subscribers receive in addition to that.